Tag: Christianity

If you grew up in church world, you learned that one of the most important things was God’s glory. We were very clearly supposed to give God the glory, like little human spotlights always showing how awesome God is. Over time, I learned what kind of things would do this. There was a clear category: […]

I’ve been re-organizing my life so I can spend more time using my best gifts. I’m a teacher, a creator and a writer at heart. It is incredibly life giving to me to create things that help people grow. To that end, I’ve been learning from people online who are thinking about writing, blogging, and […]

I have an ambivalent relationship with my religion. Maybe you do, too? I’m a follower of Jesus. Like it or not, I’m part of the tribe called Christian. Many days I don’t like it much at all. Don’t misunderstand me. I love Jesus and the people of Jesus. I even love the church. Most days… […]

Want God to answer your prayers? Want a sense of intimacy with God? Then you have to show you’re serious in your commitment. You need to be doing all the right things and avoiding all the wrong ones. Try harder, believe more, really mean it this time. Not everyone believes this, but a lot of […]

How do you answer this question? A friend of mine, Kelly Bean, is in the critical last mile of having her book published. She wasn’t sure if her publisher was going to like her idea for a title. I can understand why. It’s a Christian publisher offering a book for Christians. Her title idea? “How […]

We know who’s in. We know who’s out. There’s a sickness in Christianity today. Pastors publicly denouncing other pastors. Bloggers parsing the words of Christian writers, dissecting and weighing their theology to determine if they are orthodox. Christians waving protest signs declaring exactly who God hates. We’ve got an epidemic of the Jonah Syndrome. As […]

For some of you Easter is a fun springtime holiday. For others of you, it’s the celebration of the most important moment in history. I want to offer you another possibility: Easter is an entire world-view, and one I suggest that you are desperate for, whether you know it or not. Today’s post is long. […]

Somewhere back in time someone decided that sexual sin is the worst kind of sin. In many churches sexual sin is the line over which you may not cross. Sex before marriage is the worst thing a Christian teenager can do. Sleeping around is the worst thing a Christian woman can do. Looking at pornography […]

(I wrote this in 2012, but the situation has only gotten worse. I feel even more strongly than I did then.) It’s an election year, apparently. I’ve noticed the sprouting yard signs and the increasing emotional urgency in political conversations. The internets buzz with people making their case and stomping their virtual feet. As a […]

And now onto the last myth in this series: Myth #5. Ignore your emotions and they will just go away. This is the myth that does the most damage. The body count is enormous—marriages ended, relationships broken, churches split and destroyed—all because people with influence were unwilling to stop and look at the uncomfortable emotions […]

Here’s Part 4. Try something for me. Wherever you are right now—at your computer, or iPad or iPhone—look away from the screen. If there’s a mirror there, all the better. Take stock of how you feel, and then when you’re ready say this sentence: “You seem really reasonable today.” Now, take stock of how you […]

Now, onto Myth #3: Emotions Aren’t Spiritual. There is one particular story in the life of Jesus that was really uncomfortable for the little church I grew up in. It’s found in every one of the Gospels, so it wasn’t possible to ignore. Something about the story was powerful and important, but something else was a […]

I attended The Justice Conference in Portland in 2012. This is part 2 of my reflections. You can catch up on part 1 (Love, Justice & the Problem of Indifferent Christians) here. Part 2: If You Feel Like God, You Will Do Justice. As I sat through speaker after speaker at the conference, one question kept surfacing for […]

Part 1: Digesting the Justice Conference In 2012 I attended the Justice Conference, here in Portland. It was amazing. Like conferences often are, it was a fire hose of information. When I left the conference late Saturday night, I was over-full. I wanted to reflect, to not open my mouth for weeks. The friend I […]

Have you ever experienced a paradigm shift? This isn’t just learning new information. This is when you discover something that changes the way you see everything. It’s the difference between thinking that the earth might revolve around the sun, instead of the other way around. I’m in the middle of a paradigm shift right now. […]

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